In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Donald Trump prioritized a message of healing America from the chaos of recent years. However, his administration has largely maintained the federal institutions that contributed to the very problems he promised to fix. This article argues that without significant change to these institutions, any reforms will be temporary.
1. Trump's Campaign Promise: Trump focused his campaign on a powerful promise to help America heal from the disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and foreign conflicts.
2. Challenges of Actual Change: While campaigning is easier than enacting real change, the American right has struggled to counter the established political ideologies effectively.
3. Historical Context: The issues faced by the right today mirror those described in a 1938 pamphlet by Garet Garrett, who noted the failure of conservatives to prevent a revolution brought on by the New Deal, which expanded government control.
4. The Mistake of Conservatism: Garrett emphasized that the right must recognize past institutional changes rather than just preventing new ones. The conservative movements have largely ignored the existing structures and their implications.
5. Inevitability of Federal Growth: Over the decades since the New Deal, the federal government has grown significantly, with conservatives often working within the system, which has led to ongoing issues for the average American.
6. Temporary Solutions: When conservatives gain power, they tend to focus on steering the federal government for their own agendas instead of addressing the core problems, thus further entrenching existing issues.
7. Failure to Learn from History: Despite past warnings such as those made by Rothbard in the 1990s, the conservative movement has largely remained within its traditional bounds, missing opportunities for genuine reform.
8. Trump's Leadership: Trump’s initial presidential term did not diverge significantly from standard conservative practices, even with a strong populist undercurrent. As he resumes leadership amid another campaign, there is hope for institutional reform, but concrete changes remain absent.
9. Continued Federal Power: Trump's presidency has seen ongoing expansion of federal power. Many of the institutions he criticized have remained intact, and new policies often replicate old mistakes.
10. Call for Action: The argument stresses that MAGA must abandon traditional conservatism and focus on dismantling existing institutions that bolster progressivism and interventionism, which have already reshaped the political landscape.
If Trump and the MAGA movement are serious about healing America, they must fundamentally reject the conservatism that has contributed to the current state of affairs. By failing to dismantle the institutional structures that enable federal overreach, they risk repeating history and achieving only temporary victories that could easily be reversed by future administrations. Meaningful change requires a decisive break from past practices and a concerted effort to restore local institutions and individual liberties.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/right-needs-reject-conservatism
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